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Ethos Issue 5, Nov 2008
Who's Your City? How the Creative Economy is
Making Where to Live the Most Important
Decision in Your Life
Author: Richard Florida
Published by Basic Books, US:2008
Reviewed by Cai Shan
When Thomas Friedman asserted that "the world is flat", he could hardly have imagined that it would one day be countered by another notion: that the world is in fact "spiky". This is precisely what Richard Florida argues in his new book, Who’s Your City?. Florida, an academic in economy development and demography, is best known for his writings on the rise and flight of the creative class—a catch-all reference to the strata of talented individuals in a society, including scientists, writers, artists and designers, who create the new knowledge, technology and innovations that drive economic and cultural development. His current book is the product of extensive research on the relevance of place to the creative class; it paints a convincing picture of a world where the geographical congregation of diverse, creative talent is now a key underlying driver (or at least a pre-requisite) for economic growth and cutting-edge innovation.
WHAT THE WORLD REALLY LOOKS LIKE?
Florida aims not so much to debunk the great levelling effect of globalisation as to puncture the belief that the world is only flat. He makes the case that the global economy that emerges is in fact full of "peaks and valleys". Through empirical data and detailed visual maps, Florida illustrates the increasing clustering of population, innovation and higher-level economy activity in only a handful of locations, which Florida describes as "mega-regions". He considers these regions, which include agglomerations of adjoining cities and suburbs, as the true fundamental economic units of the world—contrary to past theories of growth which tended to look exclusively at nations and firms, and discount the relevance of location.
Florida identifies a few dozen mega-regions worldwide, across the United States, Europe and Asia, of which the largest is Greater Tokyo, followed by the Boston-New York-Washington corridor, and the Chicago-Pittsburgh mega-region. These mega-regions house a range of 5 to 100 million people and produce hundreds of billions, and even trillions, worth of economic output. They amass talent, production, innovation and markets on a massive scale and pace that far surpass that of their neighbours.
WHY DOES THE WORLD LOOK THIS WAY?
What sustains this accelerating concentration of economic growth? Florida describes this "clustering force"
as the "tendency of creative people to
seek out and thrive in like-minded groups, and the self-perpetuating economic edge that comes from their doing so". This edge derives from the sheer productivity advantages, economies of scale, and knowledge spillover effects available to creative people and firms when they cluster.
Such clustering may be viewed as the centripetal force of globalisation that concentrates economic activity, versus the centrifugal force of globalisation which spreads it out. In reality, the two forces act in concert. The economic value of "spiky" creative input is consolidated and realised through centripetal forces which increase the returns on value-added activities (through faster roll-out of services and goods worldwide),
thereby attracting more talent and innovation to these locations, and making them even "spikier".
"Means migration" describes the re-location of highly educated and skilled people to the small number of metropolitan areas ("means metros") and the corresponding exodus of the lower to middle classes outward from these places.
The powers of agglomeration and "preferential attachment" (in which creative people attract other inventive people) explain why these peaks continue to ascend, and grow closer together,
while the "valleys" sink and diverge. In effect, the clustering force sorts
locations into a hierarchy, by concentrating not only talent but also jobs, industries and firms within
regions, on an unprecedented scale.
But what about the competitive dynamics and drivers between regions and cities during the clustering process? If two talent hubs start off with similar economic conditions and talent clusters, how will they compete such that one (or both) emerges as the winner? It is
unclear which precise factors best determine the outcome.
GEOGRAPHY OF HAPPINESS
It turns out that people are happier in places with higher concentrations of personality types like themselves. Florida’s findings from his Place and Happiness Survey further reveal that not only is place important to individual happiness, different cities affect happiness differently. In fact, cities, like people, have distinct personalities, which attract certain types of people over time. For example, "experiential" cities like New York and Boston have more "open-to-experience" personality types, while "conventional dutiful" regions like those in the Sun Belt1 have more agreeable and conscientious people.
Florida argues that psychological fit clearly defines "place happiness" and people’s migration choices. This implies that the global sorting of locations is not just based on jobs, education and skills, but also on basic personality types.
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